James Chao, MD
Plastic Surgery · San Diego, CANPI 1093740789
Payments from drug & device makers
Across 508 payments — averaging $645.75 each. Meals, travel, consulting and speaking fees, gifts and royalties reported by drug and device makers.
- Boston Scientific$266K
- Kerecis Limited$22K
- W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.$19K
- TELA Bio, Inc.$6K
- AbbVie$3K
- Acelrx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.$2K
- plus $10K from 49 others
Across 3 payments — averaging $8916.67 each. Payments tied to a research study. These frequently flow through the physician to a hospital or research institution rather than to the physician personally.
- Sientra, Inc.$27K
What the payments were for
- Consulting fees$6,6442%
- Speaking & faculty fees$259,17079%
- Travel & lodging$36,81211%
- Food & beverage$20,1876%
- Education$4,2001%
- Gifts$1,0270%
General payments by program year
Who reported the general payments
Companies are grouped under their corporate parent — a single manufacturer often files under several CMS reporting entities. Research and ownership payments are counted separately and are not in this table.
What the payments were tied to
Products named in the reported payments. Only payments of $100 or more are attributed here — the typical reported payment nationally is a meal worth about $16, and listing those product-by-product would be noise.
- Kerecis SurgiClose$67,473
- SPECTRA WAVEWRITER$46,643
- GENERAL - THERAPIES$46,447
- WaveWriter Alpha Prime 16$28,038
- GENERAL PAIN MANAGEMENT$23,763
- WAVEWRITER ALPHA$19,978
- Kerecis GraftGuide$16,868
- Kerecis Omega3 Marigen$16,861
- Superion Indirect Decompression System$12,769
- SYNECOR Biomaterial$10,910
- Intracept$8,250
- Kerecis Omega3 SurgiClose$7,758
- SUPERION$7,562
- GORE ENFORM Biomaterial$5,878
- Ovitex$3,593
- NATRELLE SALINE-FILLED BREAST IMPLANTS$2,124
- DSUVIA$2,000
- DERMABOND Portfolio$1,878
- STRATAFIX$1,878
- Kerecis Omega3 GraftGuide$1,658
How this compares
$328,040 in reported general payments places this provider in the 95th percentile of 780 plastic surgery providers in California.
Medicare billing
What this is not: this is the amount Original Medicare Part B allowed for services this provider billed in 2024. It is not their income. It excludes Medicare Advantage — now more than half of all Medicare enrollment — along with Medicaid and all commercial insurance, and it is gross practice revenue before staff, rent, supplies and malpractice premiums. CMS also suppresses any figure covering ten or fewer patients, so low-volume providers appear smaller than they are.
Most prescribed under Part D
| Drug | Claims | Cost to plans & patients |
|---|---|---|
| Hydrocodone-AcetaminophenHydrocodone/Acetaminophen | 44 | $294 |
| Oxycodone-AcetaminophenOxycodone Hcl/Acetaminophen | 19 | $223 |
| Cephalexin | 12 | $49 |
Paid to pharmacies, not to this prescriber.
Other plastic surgery in San Diego
- Salvatore PacellaSan Diego$517K
- John ApostolidesSan Diego$460K
- Jason TorantoSan Diego$73K
- Christopher ReidSan Diego$66K
- Rahm NazeraliPalo Alto$1.6M
- Dennis AndersonSan Bernardino$1.3M
- Vipul DevBakersfield$1.1M
- Arash MomeniPalo Alto$919K
- Anshu GuptaEncinitas$682K
- Anne PeledSan Francisco$623K
Where these figures come from
- Payments: CMS Open Payments, program years 2019–2025 (publication P06302026_06032026).
- Billing: Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners, data year 2024. Original Medicare Part B only.
- Identity: NPPES NPI Registry, July 2026.